


Far Afield

by Destina



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-01-02
Updated: 2003-01-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 21:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2555993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/pseuds/Destina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Daniel struggle with changing roles and needs as Jack prepares to retire from the military.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Far Afield

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ in January 2003. Canon AU, which departs from canon around season 7.

_Home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks._  
\-- G. K. Chesterton 

 

May, 2008

 

“Forget it. Asgard worship totems from P64-632 do not match up with the carefully selected décor of my cabin.” Jack took the trinium statue off the mantel and stared at its ugly features. While he’d been on the other side of the room hauling books out of boxes, Daniel had surreptitiously been unloading all sorts of odd, freaky-looking artifacts and putting them on shelves. 

“It’s a matter of taste,” Daniel said. He smiled at Jack and set another one on the opposite end of the mantel, next to a framed picture of SG-1 on PX2-0410. 

“Oh, I agree with that,” Jack said. He glanced at the other totem and winced. “It’s bad taste. Yours.”

“Come on, Jack.” Daniel whisked the totem out of his hands and placed it carefully on the far right edge of the mantelpiece. “It’s not that bad.” 

“It doesn’t match the Remington,” Jack pointed out, in a last ditch effort to subvert the new order of things. “And I thought you were supposed to catalog all this stuff and store it away behind a locked door somewhere...?”

“They let me take a few non-technological things off base,” Daniel said, then added hastily, “Not souvenirs. Objects for continuing study.”

Jack’s eyebrow arched up. “Were you this good at bullshit before you met me?”

“Academia is all about bullshit, Jack.” 

“Yet another language you speak fluently.” 

Daniel ignored the jab. He glanced up at the painting over the fireplace. “Hm,” he said. Jack tried for a moment to decipher the sound: was it the thoughtful noise, or the calculating one? He took smug pride in the fact that Daniel was surprised by the art scattered around the cabin. Daniel had given it the same scrutiny he’d give an off-world artifact, like he’d never suspected Jack was a man who knew art. Jack secretly suspected Daniel had expected a talking fish mounted on a piece of wood, or something else equally tacky. 

Like, for instance, a silver totem with fangs. 

“I don’t think it has to match exactly,” Daniel said. He turned and leaned easily against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “This is about blending, you know. Incorporating elements of my life into yours and yours into mine.”

“I hate that word,” Jack said. 

“What?” 

“Blending.” Every time he said it, cold chills ran the length of his spine. Too many memories of darkness, of the inside of his soul dying one piece at a time, and visions of Daniel standing with him at the precipice. 

“All right, how about merging?”

“You make it sound like two companies completing a business deal.”

“More like getting married,” Daniel said. 

Jack met Daniel’s gaze for a long moment and thought of many things he wasn’t quite ready to say. He cleared his throat and went back to the boxes of books on the other end of the room. 

“There’s some off-white in the painting, anyway. The silver brings it out,” Daniel said from behind him. 

“Whatever,” Jack muttered. “You didn’t think I had any taste, admit it. You thought you were going to come up here and take down my tacky stuff, didn’t you?”

“Merging,” Daniel said. “Not replacing.”

“Uh-huh.” Jack eyed the bookshelves. They were filled almost to capacity and he’d have to remove some of his own books if he planned to get the rest of Daniel’s up there. 

As if Daniel had heard his thoughts, he appeared at Jack’s shoulder, blocking the way. “Don’t you dare. We can send the rest of my books back. I’ll find a place in the house for them.”

“Look, Daniel. It’s not like I spend any time up here actually reading these.” Jack had already picked out an entire shelf’s worth of books that could go straight into the just-emptied box – old pulp novels and other assorted crap he’d read over the years. “I just never had any motivation to get rid of them.”

Daniel’s expression changed, from one of warning to something softer, more open. He hooked an arm around Jack’s neck. “Motivation?” he said, in a low, dirty voice that got Jack’s dick hard in an instant. He pulled Jack forward by the pressure of his arm, and kissed him. A slow kiss, one of those brain-twisting kisses that ended arguments and opened up new worlds for Jack. Daniel pulled back to let him breathe, to frame Jack’s face with his hands and make him a more convenient target, and then they were back at it.

Jack thought maybe the merging thing was going to work out just fine. 

Daniel stripped away Jack’s sweatshirt, and then his own. “Most of your stuff belongs in boxes, where it can’t scare anybody,” Jack murmured. 

“Get over it,” Daniel said, a rumbling voice of authority from somewhere down hear Jack's belt. “I’ll help you.” He had Jack’s pants undone and shoved down around his knees before Jack could think of a quick comeback. He toppled Jack back onto the couch. No more words, then. The few he had to spare were jumbled in his brain at the sight of Daniel stroking his cock, taking it in his mouth like he’d just been waiting for an opportunity to taste Jack. Eyes on Jack, always, while he sucked him off; it was one of the things Jack loved the most, those windows to the truth of how much Daniel loved him, wanted him. 

Daniel spread Jack’s thighs apart with his hands. Jack had been watching Daniel’s hands for years, wondering always what it would be like to be touched by Daniel. Not the way Daniel touched inscriptions on a wall – reverently, as though he’d found religion – but confidently, the way he touched things familiar to him, things he was sure of. 

Jack let his head fall back and closed his eyes. No way he could last if he looked at Daniel. He floated on the sensation of Daniel’s tongue stroking him roughly. When Daniel was done, Jack was going to kiss him, crush that wet, busy mouth beneath his own and taste himself there. The thought of it made him groan out loud; Daniel quickened his pace. 

So close, now. Jack opened his eyes and caught sight of the totems along the mantel. Their eyes were on him. Watching. It was creepy, like having a dog in the room, seeing everything, a presence without a voice. He stilled. 

“Jack?” Daniel raised his head. “What’s wrong?”

“Those goddamned totems,” Jack said furiously. 

“Oh, come on.” Daniel’s eyes were alight with amusement. “You’re kidding. Right?”

“’Fraid not. Jesus, Daniel, look at ‘em. They’re…watching!”

"What are you talking about?"

“Dammit,” Jack said. He yanked up his pants. “No joke. I can’t.”

Daniel caught his hand. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Unless you put blindfolds on those things, yeah. I am.” He zipped his fly and tried not to look at Daniel, who seemed both disappointed and on the verge of outright laughter. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.” 

“Jack!”

“Daniel.” It was hard to get up, harder to ignore Daniel’s warm hand brushing against his, calling him back with a mute plea; he knew Daniel must think he was insane, but it wouldn’t be the first time. 

From the small kitchen, as he wrapped potatoes in foil and seasoned two steaks for broiling, he heard the rustle of newspaper. Ten to one the ugly-ass big-eyed totems were going back in the boxes, ready to ship out. Daniel had never been one to miss a clue. 

He paused then and went back into the living room. Daniel was sitting on the arm of the couch, still shirtless, staring up at the painting. There was a thoughtful expression on his face and a totem in his hands. 

“One,” Jack said. 

Daniel turned and frowned at him. “What?”

“One totem. But not on the mantel, okay? Find some other place for it. And throw something over it when...” Jack fished for a word. 

Daniel leaned over the back of the sofa. A soft smile played across his face. “When you fuck me?”

Jack stared at Daniel; the words seemed to slide out so easily, no stutter of uncertainty there, no sir. He seemed eager to say it, as though he knew the effect it had on Jack, those words, tied to images and wanting and…Jack grinned at him. “Close enough.”

Compromise reached, they moved on to dinner. It was still new to them, the rituals of being together, of crowding each other’s spaces in ways they’d never quite stopped to think about. It had been that way from the beginning, but it was different, now. Teamwork, of a different sort. Every now and then, they stopped to look, to touch. It made the world seem a quieter place. Saner. It wasn’t what Jack had expected it to be, but then again, very few things in Jack’s life had turned out as expected. 

“How long for the potatoes?” Daniel asked.

“I’ve got it,” Jack said. Daniel made a grab for them, but Jack bent and opened the oven door, and reached deep to place the potatoes on the rack. Such a simple act; hard to believe it could cause such terrible pain to ricochet up his spine. The suddenness of it made him catch his breath. He grunted with the effort of not shouting and caught Daniel eyeing him silently, all his attention diverted to Jack. 

Jack waved Daniel off and squashed his own sudden annoyance. Daniel usually pretended to ignore Jack’s obvious discomfort – anything else would cause one of those meltdowns where Jack stood silent and Daniel pulled teeth for hours, their unique brand of argument – but Jack knew Daniel was tuned in all the time, listening. Worrying. 

Duty had taken a toll on Jack; his body was paying the price. The decision to retire hadn’t been a choice. 

They ate in contented silence. On a normal night, there would have been conversation, bits of reminiscence or paying tribute to ‘how was your day, dear’ with talk about saving the universe. This time, they only looked at each other – short glances, delivered beneath lowered eyelashes for maximum impact. Jack didn’t stop to think about how strange it was, anymore, this whole flirting thing. 

“I’ll have to put some of that stuff in storage,” Daniel said, as he pushed the last bites of his steak around the plate with his fork. “Just the stuff from the office alone—”

“Plenty of room in the attic,” Jack said. He forked a piece of meat off Daniel’s plate, swiped it through some steak sauce on his own plate, and popped it in his mouth. “You don’t need to pay for storage.”

“I don’t want to clutter up your space.”

“Too late for that,” Jack said, with a significant look at Daniel. “We’re merging. We’re going to merge some more after dinner.”

Daniel’s soft snort of laughter made Jack happy. Unreasonably, perfectly happy, in a strangely bittersweet way. “You need a new mattress. I’m going to break my back on that thing. Or, your back, depending on how you look at things…anyway. It’s too hard.”

“We.”

“We?”

“Yes, Daniel. We. It’s French for ‘you pay half’. We need a new mattress.”

“Right,” Daniel said. A slow grin spread across his face; Jack’s grin matched it. He congratulated himself on making Daniel smile and laugh within the space of two minutes. “Where do you shop for a mattress out here, anyway? I mean…twenty miles to the nearest town, and do they even have a mall? There’s a science to selecting a mattress. Lots of…testing.” 

“Testing?” Jack echoed. His dick twitched at the images floating through his head. 

“Why not?” That gleam was back in Daniel’s eye again. “We can do anything, Jack. Anything we want, anywhere. Amazing, isn’t it, when you stop to consider how many places—”

“Daniel.” Jack picked up his plate, then Daniel’s, and unceremoniously dropped them in a heap to the side of the table. Silverware clattered to the ground. He leaned over the table and hauled Daniel up by the collar of his shirt. “Shut up,” he growled. When they kissed, they were wild, locked in a struggle to conquer each other. Daniel reached for him, half-yanking him across the table. Jack thought the table might have an edge on the mattress for hard and unyielding, but he also thought he might not care, in another minute or two. 

And then Daniel’s cell phone rang. The very sound of it made Jack wince. Daniel gave him an apologetic look and grabbed it from the end of the table. Before Daniel had even flipped the thing open, Jack heard the death knell of togetherness. Words knocked against his skull: “This soon? But…yes, I understand what you mean, and I’ve actually prepared some extensive notes about the…How long? Oh. Well.” 

Daniel’s eyes flicked up; he looked at Jack sadly for a moment before he went around the table in search of a pencil. “Just a minute, sir, let me…” Jack turned and fished a pen out from a kitchen drawer; Daniel accepted it gratefully. He scribbled some notes on a paper towel. “Yes, sir. I’ll be ready.” 

Jack sat back down at the table and waited for it. 

“I have to be back at the SGC tonight.”

“This place is going to be under six feet of snow before I see you naked again. Isn’t it?” Jack leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. Daniel slid his arms around Jack and kissed that place on Jack’s neck that always made his dick jump straight to attention. “Not fair,” Jack grumbled, and tried to ignore the blatant diversionary tactic. “I knew you shouldn’t have brought the cell.”

“I don’t have any choice. You know that. I’ve been waiting for word from Thor about the possibility of studying with the Asgard on their homeworld, and finally, they’ve given permission.”

“Great,” Jack said, unconvincingly, and wished he’d stuck to his original plan to throw the cell phone in the pond. 

“Jack.” Daniel unwrapped himself from Jack’s shoulders and dropped down beside the chair. “I don’t want this to change anything. We agreed.”

“I know.” Jack smiled at him, leaking bitterness all over the place. “The five-year plan.”

“It was your idea,” Daniel said quietly. 

“Yeah, I know. Thanks for reminding me.” Jack pushed the chair back and stood up. Briefly, he pondered diving into the depths of self-pity and drinking whiskey until he passed out face down in the pond. But Daniel interrupted that thought with his body; with kisses, he stripped Jack’s objections away and reminded him of the reasons he’d suggested the post-retirement plan to begin with. 

Sex didn’t help much. Not like it should have. In the morning, when Daniel was gone, the bed was just as empty, just as cold, and a note hung precariously from the corner of the mirror – a scrawled message about Jack flying back and earning his consultant’s fee, for a change. I could use your help , the note said. Daniel’s bold handwriting was underscored. Come with me. An assignment, as a token of affection. 

Jack crumpled the note and dropped it in the trash can. When he grabbed his razor and started to shave, he looked in the mirror and saw a man without a purpose. 

 

****

Daniel felt very small in all the Asgard spaces. Asgard furniture was functional, but not comfortable, and all their buildings were enormous. Once in a while, when Daniel would get the urge to rise and stretch his legs, he would stop to wonder how such an advanced race could have forsaken comfort for functionality. It surprised him. 

On this particular day, Thor was talking a great deal, delivering a history lesson that would make even the most attentive archaeologist restless. Daniel was not feeling particularly attentive. When Thor paused in his recitation, Daniel tapped his pencil on the console, signaling a question. “So what you’re saying is, you’ve really never found any other civilizations you considered as desperately in need of intervention as the human race. Would that be accurate?”

It was difficult to read Thor’s tone, particularly without hints of facial expression to assist with interpreting Thor’s meaning. Still, Daniel was starting to catch on to the tiny bits of inflection – the little things that made Thor seem…human. 

Possibly a very bad analogy, and one he wouldn’t share with the Asgard. 

“That is correct. We later provided protected status to other groups of humans who were transplanted from your world. However, very few worlds have required our immediate intervention, as yours did, millennia ago. We did not have a vested interest in protecting the Tau’ri, but we did see your potential.”

“So…why is it, again, that you didn’t interfere when the gate was raised, back in Ra’s time?”

“As I have explained, Dr. Jackson, by that time the war between the Asgard and the Goa’uld was fully underway. It was impossible to interfere. There was no treaty to govern protected status. It was understood, long before the treaty was put in place, that the Goa’uld would not allow the Tau’ri to be given that status as part of the process of peace. You must remember that the Tau’ri were not the first hosts to Goa’uld symbiotes; your race was a convenience for Ra and the others. They might just as easily have wiped your species from the galaxy, if they were not allowed to continue to use the Tau’ri as slaves. Thus we resorted to alternative measures.” Thor’s head tilted to one side. “You seem distracted, Doctor. Perhaps we should take a short rest before continuing. I am certain you have many more questions requiring answers.”

“And we’ve only scratched the surface,” Daniel murmured. After three months, they’d barely touched on many of the more important concepts governing Asgard law, history and politics.

He looked down at his journal. In his messy, hurried printing, he’d outlined a sweeping arc of detailed notes and jotted bits about Asgard history and language.

Below that, he’d sketched a circle amidst trees. A lake, far away; on its edge, a cabin. 

He looked out the large windows at his uninterrupted view of spires and towers, ships floating across blue skies, and thought of Earth, which had its own brand of beauty, its own technological marvels. 

“We will have need of you here for some time to come,” Thor said, from beside him. “Once you have gathered the information of most relevance to you, we intend to request your assistance with some difficult translations. This would be an opportunity for our scientists to work more closely with humans. It is something we have anticipated for quite some time.”

Daniel turned to stare at Thor. “How long is…some time to come?” he asked, thinking that perhaps a few more weeks might not be so bad. 

“Several of your months,” Thor said. 

Daniel tried to bite back the agitation that rose in him at the thought of six or eight months spent immersed in translations. He’d have only brief visits home, time only to grab supplies and wave at Hammond on his way back through the gate. 

No leave time; no personal business. Endless hours of studying, of comparing, of searching for patterns he already knew by heart, and no end in sight. 

He reached out to touch the window in front of him and was surprised to find shimmering energy at his fingertips; it was easy to forget that the Asgard were too advanced to use something as primitive and tactile as glass. 

“What are you trying to translate?” he asked slowly. 

“We’ve found several inscriptions written in a Goa’uld dialect which contains shifting phonemes. It has proven surprisingly difficult to translate. You have had extensive exposure to a number of Goa’uld variants. With your assistance, we expected to be able to complete a workable translation more quickly.” 

“Thor, you know I’ll do anything I can to assist you, but…” Daniel took a deep breath. “I’m not available for lengthy off-world missions like I used to be.”

Thor canted his head and blinked slowly. “We were given the impression that your new duties would make you more easily accessible to us. This was welcome news for the Asgard High Council. We had hoped to continue work with you, Dr. Jackson.” 

“I understand that, Thor.” Daniel stared out the window and wondered what the hell was wrong with him. A lifetime spent in search of opportunities like this, and he couldn’t even manage to muster up the will to be a part of helping others to find the answers, when the time came.

“Is there some particular objection to—”

“No,” Daniel said quickly. “No, not at all. It’s not the work I mind, Thor. It’s…well, when I was a part of SG-1, all the things I cared about traveled with me, or were right there in the program. Now, everything has changed.”

“I see,” Thor said. Daniel wondered if he really did understand. Though the Asgard had never seemed to be particularly in tune with human emotion, Daniel hoped he wasn’t as transparent as he felt at just that moment. Thor turned his face to Daniel, watching him for a few moments, and asked, “Are you referring to the reassignment of personnel from your team?”

“Yes.” 

Thor turned back to the window. “The Asgard have great confidence in Colonel Carter. However, she is not O’Neill.”

“No. No, she’s not.” Daniel cleared his throat. “There are some excellent archaeologists and translators at the SGC. I recruited two of them myself for their particular skills. Perhaps one could be stationed on the Asgard homeworld, on permanent assignment. I can take some of the work with me and continue with it…back on Earth.”

The proposal was rational, and reasonable, and entirely self-serving. Daniel was certain Thor knew it. He wondered what kinds of thoughts, what judgments of motive, were lurking behind Thor’s black eyes. Guilt burned in him briefly, like a spark fueled by the remnants of obligation, and then vanished. 

He was long past the notion that his every waking hour belonged to the service of the greater good. 

After a long, thoughtful silence, Thor said, “That would be a satisfactory arrangement. Perhaps when you return, you will bring O’Neill with you. It would be good to see him.”

“Yes.”

They stood together and watched the play of light across silver-hulled ships. It reminded Daniel of dappled sunlight on water. 

 

***

Early morning sunshine turned Daniel’s apartment into a giant sunbeam. Jack liked light, airy spaces as much as the next guy, but over coffee, he wondered how Daniel could stand so much cheery brightness before he’d been fully caffeinated each day. 

Daniel, in a white t-shirt and low-slung sweats that clung to the tops of his hips, was packing up the remainder of his stuff. Lots and lots of stuff; so much of it that Jack wondered where he’d been hiding it all this time. A man who concealed clutter was either to be admired or greatly feared. It seemed they’d only just unpacked all the things Hammond had ordered be stored while Daniel was dead…ascended. Daniel’s personal items were traveling more often – and with clearer purpose – than their owner. 

It was an indulgence, sitting at Daniel’s table on a Sunday morning, the paper by his side and Daniel within reach. Daniel had been on the Asgard homeworld for so long that he now felt both strange and familiar to Jack, comfortable and awkward all at once. He wanted to swallow Daniel whole, wrap him up in his favorite robe and pin him down and never let him out of the house again. Those thoughts made him feel foolish and sentimental, so he gulped down the rest of the coffee and got up to help. 

Helping was a subjective term in the O’Neill lexicon. 

“Leave the throw pillows.” Jack fished them out of the boxes and tossed them aside, a mountain of tasteful beige confetti. “The furniture’s fat.”

“Overstuffed.”

“Whatever. Don’t need these.”

Daniel threw them in the boxes anyway, blatantly ignoring his opinion. 

Jack pulled them out and dumped them back on the floor. 

“Jack.” Just a hint of steely impatience in that still-sleepy voice. “The pillows are going.”

“I’m not going to fight with you about pillows, Daniel. We don’t need them. They’re staying.”

“They’re comfortable. They’re going.”

Jack looked at Daniel, and then at the pillows. When he reached for Daniel, it was foreplay; they wrestled down to the ground. Jack smiled to see the small, stubborn grin on Daniel’s face. It faded when Jack kissed him, when he slowed down the pace of Daniel’s hands on him. “Easy,” Jack said. They had all the time in the world, now. 

Soon they were rolling in a pile of chenille and cotton fluff, groping, kissing, touching each other. Jack lost his concentration. It was supposed to be a one-sided match, but he’d given up on having any control with Daniel. He could afford to let it go. 

Daniel’s body was tense, coiled, heavy over Jack’s, and he took his time. Jack could remember those early days with Daniel, not so very long ago, when he had a problem with Daniel’s weight on him, preventing him from rising. He’d been looking at things all wrong; the only time he was light enough to fly was when Daniel was inside him, slow, easy, stealing breath from his body. 

Later, they lay together in the mess of scattered pillows and ripped sweats, touching each other. Jack loved to see Daniel this way, loved to be seen – no hiding in darkness, no looking away. 

“I ruined one of these damned pillows,” Jack said, as he shifted over the sticky bit of mashed cotton beneath him. 

“One less to pack,” Daniel said. He gave Jack a token smile, but Jack could feel unspoken truth lurking in the tension of Daniel’s body. 

“What?” Jack asked. They didn’t need big emotional discussions; they had a special shorthand.

“Abydos,” Daniel said, and that was all he really had to say, because Jack knew what was going to happen. Daniel was going to tell him he was leaving for three, six, nine months, some period of time longer than they had actually been together, and Jack was going to be left to lug his boxes to their house, and dump the contents on the floor, and leave them there until Daniel came back…came home. 

He was still getting the hang of thinking in plural again. 

“When?”

“Monday.” Daniel ran his hands over Jack’s body, touching him with a tenderness that was worse than torture, and made Jack wonder why he’d ever agreed to any plan where they would be apart. “Come with me.”

“Just did.”

Daniel kissed his shoulder, then the corner of his mouth. His lips were warm; Jack loved the feel of Daniel’s open mouth against his skin. “Seriously, Jack.”

Jack scooped up a pillow and stuffed it under his head. “I’m retired.”

“Hammond could make it an order.”

“There’s a limit to the number of times they can drag me out of retirement, Daniel. I’m used up.”

“Special dispensation. You can see Skaara.”

“It’s dangerous.” Daniel was the linguist, Jack thought; let him translate. 

“You mean you want to stick to the plan.” 

“I mean…fuck.” Jack sat up. Daniel’s arms fell away from him. “I mean you have a job to do. So go do it.” 

Daniel sat up beside him, arms wrapped around his naked knees, and dropped his head down on his arms. Jack watched him, waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, Jack reached out to stoke his back, gently, a different message. Daniel looked up at him blearily. “I’m tired of leaving.”

“I’m tired of staying.” Jack pulled his hand away and sighed. “I don’t know how the hell Sara did it.”

“Sara?” Daniel echoed the name as if it was a complete puzzle to him. Jack wondered for a moment if he should explain, but Daniel had already caught on. “Her place in your life wasn’t tied directly to your work, Jack. She never had to go back to civilian life; she never knew anything else, so there wasn’t anything to give up, to leave behind.”

“Not quite,” Jack said. “Sure, it was different, but she gave things up. Her career, for starters. A chance at a normal family…” He broke off abruptly. Water under the bridge; blood spilled long ago. No point in resurrecting ghosts. “I don’t think I have what it takes to be a military wife.” 

Daniel tensed, then stood up. He collected his sweats and a quick kiss from Jack – hit and run – and walked away, toward the bedroom, to take a shower. Jack tried not to look at him as he left the room because the more he looked, the easier it was to accept things. He thought maybe he shouldn’t want that so badly – to accept. 

It was getting cold, so Jack got up, got dressed. Went back to packing up Daniel’s stuff, though he had no idea why. It wasn’t like Daniel would be around to need it. 

Sara had always packed without protest. Organization was the primary skill of a military wife – boxes, endless inventory sheets, permanent markers, and a cheerful attitude to combat cranky moving men. Armed with a clipboard and a roll of packing tape, she had marshaled their resources more than once and helped to ease the transition from place to place – from hovel to hovel, in the early days. 

She’d never complained when he left for months at a time, off to parts unknown to do god knows what. Acceptance was part of the game, part of the illusion. He’d never understood how difficult it must have been for her, how strange it would be to have so little control over the circumstances of her life, even if she’d surrendered to it willingly. 

Shadows had stretched across the room by the time Daniel was out of the shower. Jack sprawled on the couch, eyes closed. He drifted for a while on the brink of dozing, then opened his eyes to see Daniel sitting on the coffee table, watching him with a gentle gaze. 

“’M not asleep,” Jack mumbled, and roused himself, but Daniel reached out and touched his knee. 

“Don’t,” Daniel said, holding him in place with his index finger. 

Jack settled back and met Daniel’s gaze. 

“Remember when I met you at the end of the ramp, when you and Sam and Teal’c came back from P4X-234?” Daniel asked.

Jack pretended to consider it, though the sight of Daniel that day still ranked right up there with the five best moments of his life. “Oh, right. It was memorable, all right. For one thing, you were playing touchy-feely with Teal’c’s chin.”

Daniel’s expression of tolerant impatience surfaced immediately. “What I mean is – I remember what it was like to be left behind. To wonder if you were ever coming home. All of you.”

Jack picked at the hem of his shirt. “Yeah. But guess what? If we hadn’t, you’d have gone planet-hopping with a new team. It’s not like you were grounded.”

“No. But that wasn’t my point, really. I had no way to come for you. No way to find you. And I wasn’t a part of things – you went without me, because you had to.”

“I get it, Daniel. Really. D’you want to get one of those big books over there and hit me over the head with it?”

“If you think it’ll help.” The sharpness of the words was softened by the look on Daniel’s face, so Jack relaxed again. Daniel tapped his finger a few times on Jack’s knee, then withdrew his hand. “That thing you said, about being a military wife.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t think of you that way.”

“That makes two of us.” 

Daniel nodded. It was a gesture of defeat, Jack thought. Ending the conversation because they were better off when they didn’t talk, sometimes. A way of avoiding the central question, the unspoken part of the conversation – a definition of roles. He couldn’t stand it. He reached out for Daniel and pulled at his hand until Daniel gave in and came close enough to kiss. “You’re always saying goodbye to me,” he said softly. He watched Daniel’s eyes grow stormy. 

“It’s not forever this time,” Daniel said, quietly. 

“It wasn’t forever last time, either. Nothing’s forever,” Jack said. He closed his eyes. 

 

***

He should have dusted his books more often, Daniel thought. Or rather, Nyan should have. Even the slightest breeze stirred up a billowing cloud of dust motes, transparent, glowing and fluttering like tiny moths in the sparse light of the desk lamps. A room full of human knowledge, collected and annotated and illustrated, and none of it made any impression on him anymore. 

At one time, knowledge had been his refuge. He could remember the thrill of research, of looking into tiny cracks and exposing the foundations of universal truths. It was a distant memory; his head was crowded with remnants, traces of things best forgotten, obscuring the joy of discovery. 

He trailed his hand across the spines of the thick volumes, leaving behind his mark. So much he’d hoped for, once; a life spent in service to the greater good, in some form. Now he’d changed paths yet again. He’d lost track of the number of times he’d altered course. 

“Daniel! Daniel, Daniel…” Breathless, Nyan careened around the corner and into Daniel’s office, coming to a full-stop and teetering on his heels beside Daniel’s chair. “Daniel! I have something to show you. Colonel Carter seems to think this could be one of our more important discoveries to date. I told her I wanted to run it by you, though, and see what you thought. Now that you’re the head of research…Daniel?” Nyan tapped his arm with an outstretched finger. “Daniel? Is something wrong?”

“What? Oh.” Daniel wrenched his attention back to Nyan, who was staring at him, brow creased into a peculiarly paternal frown. In his hands, a dozen sheets of paper were messily arranged, as though hastily gathered on the run. He’d probably been holding them out to Daniel the entire time he’d been talking. “So, you told Sam you’d show me what you’d found. And then…?” Daniel collected the papers and glanced through them. 

“And then she asked me why I hadn’t already.” Nyan grinned. He reached out and shuffled the papers around. 

“Ah,” Daniel said, as a linear order emerged. He scanned the first few pages, then laid them out side by side. Markings from a dozen worlds, all variations on a central theme, faintly reminiscent of goa’uld writing. 

All found on worlds not on the Abydos chart. 

“This is going to shoot at least one of my famous theories all to hell,” Daniel said. It gave him a perverse, wistful thrill to say it. New blood was coming in with new eyes, seeing everything with fresh focus. It was time for Daniel to step aside. The tiny shiver of anxiety he felt filled the the strange hollow in his heart where the hunger for knowledge had always been. 

“It’s times like this I wish you could remember everything you learned when you were…you know.” Nyan made an excited motion with his hand. “Glowy.”

“You’ve been hanging around with Jack too much,” Daniel said, with an arch look at his favorite former assistant. “Picking up extremely bad habits.”

“I have not!” Nyan’s grin was like a thousand-watt lie detector. Daniel suspected beneath that grin was intimate understanding of Jell-o wrestling – at a minimum. 

Daniel climbed off the chair and frowned at the bookshelves. All his journals were beginning to look alike – brown spines, worn with handling. Over his shoulder, he said, “When you start keeping field journals, make sure you do something to distinguish one from the other. Just a little, uh, advice.” He pulled out two or three, scanning their contents, and finally found the one he was looking for. He splayed it open on the counter and compared a few of the symbols. No question about it, they were the same, and his heart gave a small flutter of envy. All the things Nyan had yet to see, to discover; all the worlds ahead of him, opening up before him in brilliance, like darkness turning to daylight. Daniel missed those moments of revelation. 

He looked up into Nyan’s eager face and said, “You realize this is going to require careful documentation, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes, but what does it mean? What do you think, Daniel?”

“The real question is – what do you think?” Daniel asked. The papers on the desk fluttered a little as he waved a hand across them. “It’ll be your job to figure it out.”

“The colonel’s going to want you to do this,” Nyan said. In his voice, Daniel heard the resigned acceptance of stepping aside for the greater good. “Not that she’s not happy with me, but…everyone wants you when it comes to translations.”

“They’ll get over it, Nyan. You’re a talented linguist. You’ll do just fine.” 

“This has…implications! Big ones!”

“Yes, it does.” Daniel chuckled. He flipped a few pages in his journal, then touched one of the pages. The rough feel of the paper brought back sand and sunshine, nights spent in the arms of his wife; the sense memory faded, replaced by Nyan’s eager face. “Do you see these markings, here?”

Nyan came around the desk and stared at the page. “What is it?”

“A sketch I made on Abydos, a long time ago. Strange writing I found in some ruins far from the temple.”

With one hand, Nyan scooped his papers close, disturbing their order again. Daniel thought briefly about reminding Nyan of the purpose of some sort of scientific method, but then he glanced around his own office and promptly decided against it. Nyan had, after all, learned his cluttered style from the best. 

“Daniel!” Nyan’s grip on his shoulder was painful as he compared the writing. “These are very similar. It may mean the writing on Abydos is the same as the non-cartouche worlds.” He bit his lip; his eyes were very bright. “But the Abydonians were transplanted from Earth!”

“Yes, they were.”

“Which means there must have been a race there before them, and perhaps…they may have left more of this. Is there more?”

“Some, yes. I didn’t copy it all down. I thought…I expected to have more time to study it.” 

Nyan’s face transformed into something beautiful, knowledge unfurling, and he sprinted for the door. It all evoked a feeling of nostalgia in Daniel instead of an urge to join in on the quest. A pang of longing made him wistful for that hunger he’d once felt; it opened the emptiness inside him, the growing sense of certainty that the things he needed most weren’t on distant worlds any longer. 

“Thank you, Daniel!” Nyan’s voice floated back, echoing off concrete and steel. 

Daniel closed the journal. His hand lingered on the soft, supple leather cover, worn like skin over words and memories. He sat back down in the chair and glanced around the room. Artifacts everywhere; papers, sketches, thousands of fragments, clues to a puzzle he’d once grasped in its entirety. 

It was Nyan’s puzzle to solve, now. 

 

***

“Nice turnout,” Jack said. A hundred people had descended on his house like a miniature invasion army, only drunk and with presents. Nice presents – golf clubs, clocks, and his very own stargate replica, better than a ten-dollar model kit. It made him feel old, behind the curve, over with. Every time he turned around, someone was congratulating him on his retirement. It felt like a wake.

“Grin and bear it,” Carter said, with her most pleasant, shark-like smile. “Sir.”

“Get it out of your system while you can, Carter. Pretty soon you’ll have to start calling me Jack.”

“I don’t know if I can, sir. Jack.” She seemed pained by the very idea of it. 

With a jerk of his chin toward Daniel, Jack asked, “You did this just to torture me. Didn’t you?” He looked from Carter to Daniel. “Well?”

“Don’t look at me. They didn’t even tell me,” Daniel said. He pointed over at Teal’c, who looked extremely guilty and twice as smug. “They knew I’d tip you off.”

“Have I ever mentioned that I hate surprises?” Jack asked. “I’ll just be over there…hiding in the bedroom.”

“They’ll find you,” Daniel said mildly. 

Jack cocked an eyebrow at him, because Daniel had the balls to look pleased about it. “Not in the bathroom, they won’t.” Jack couldn’t think of any place the crowd would be less likely to barge in and congratulate him on his uselessness. “Cover me.”

“You’re on your own, Jack.” Carter’s eyes sparkled as she took a sip of her beer. 

“I fail to understand why a few well-wishers have thrown you into such an extreme state of anxiety, O’Neill. Can you not enjoy the company of your friends?” Teal’c’s hand clamped down on his shoulder. 

“If only the five of them were here? Yes.” Jack patted Teal’c’s hand before he pried it off his neck. When the throngs left, he was going to kill Daniel. And then Carter, and Teal’c. Maybe not in that order; he suspected Carter had a lot to answer for. 

Jack slipped through the crowd with a tight smile on his face. The party was camouflage, of course. It hung over his impending endless free time like a shroud, concealing the fact that he was being forced out, away from one of the two things he wanted most. Ironic, considering that he had to give up actively saving the world in order to claim the thing most worth saving on it. He wasn’t quite ready to take the leap, but he was getting there. Little steps, Daniel said. Jack was working on it. 

It was the sight of George Hammond in the hallway that stopped him in his tracks. The general was poised just outside the bedroom door, giving a hard look at the half-unpacked boxes in the bedroom. Boxes full of books and clothes. Boxes with ‘Bedrm’ written on them in a scrawl that was clearly not Jack’s – since Jack’s writing was illegible, even up close. His was a scrawl George had seen a thousand times in nine years. George had also seen the scrawl on those boxes a thousand times, and he wasn’t a stupid man. 

“General,” Jack greeted him, as he moved into the tiny hallway. Hammond turned to him and smiled. 

“Jack. You enjoying your party?”

“Oh, yes sir. Like a root canal. Only worse.” He smiled in return. “You have anything to do with this shindig?”

“Only in so far as getting invited,” George said. His eyes narrowed as he nodded toward the bedroom. “Putting some things away?” he asked. 

“Sorting some things out,” Jack said, thinking that Daniel would have appreciated the clever subtext. Personally, he was just glad his papers were in.

“Isn’t it a little late in life to be sorting things out, Jack?” And wasn’t that the Ten Million Dollar Question. 

“I had a few…setbacks,” Jack said. He hadn’t thought about it enough to articulate a better answer – even if George had wanted one, which mercifully, he didn’t. Jack thought it might be a really bad idea to pick through his psyche with George. 

“Setbacks,” George said, as if he had no idea what the word meant in the English language. 

“Distractions,” Jack said helpfully.

“Forks in the road,” George said, and Jack was starting to see glimmers of comprehension. George was quick, more so than Jack had been. Maybe it was easier to see from the outside. 

Jack reached behind him and closed the bedroom door. “Can I get you a beer, George?”

“I’d like that just fine. Thank you, Jack.”

 

***

The first week on Abydos, something compelled Daniel to make the trek to the stargate every day. Nyan was perfectly capable of checking in without him – in fact, he might have preferred it that way – but Daniel didn’t ask. He held the absurd notion in the back of his brain that Jack might appear out of the shimmering light. It made for a nice fantasy, but he knew Jack wasn’t going to come. Off-world, on a mission, they’d be bound by the old rules and restrictions. Neither of them had ever wanted that.

Hammond always asked routine questions: did they need anything, how were the supplies holding out, had there been any progress with the inscriptions. Daniel made small talk with a man who was so far away his brain hurt just imagining the distance between them. Sometimes, when the transmission was cut, he sat at the base of the platform and listened to the wind howling in the desert beyond. He thought of his future stretched out before him, infinite, of his own making. 

The first time he’d stepped through the gate, he’d been ravenous, desperate to see confirmation of the things he’d dreamed, of the certainty he carried in his heart. His lifelong ambition had unfolded in the sun, monuments to the persistence of his vision. He’d been conceited enough to revel in that accomplishment until Sha’re had knocked some sense back into him. He’d worked hard to make a life with her; he’d shed his skin, changing like the seasons, becoming husband and leader by choice. Jack had stepped through the gate and closed the door, and he’d taken Daniel’s old life - his first life - with him. 

So many more trips to Abydos; so many more seasons passed, and Daniel was no longer that man, no longer any of those men. He was more now, and also less. 

In the evenings, Skaara made a place for Daniel beside him in the light of the fire. By the second week, Daniel had fallen into the old rhythms – division of the next day’s work, talk of finding wells and of checking their levels. Nyan continued on about his business. Daniel waited to be asked for his help, but Nyan seemed content without it. 

Skaara’s questions brought Daniel into the circle, made him feel a part of something he’d nearly forgotten. Now a leader, with children of his own, Skaara seemed to inhabit a kind of shadow-realm, a place of almost-was where Daniel’s dreams of a wife and family once lived. He watched Skaara command his people with easy grace born of hard struggles his people would never understand, but there was no envy left in Daniel for his own broken destiny. 

“Tell us of your latest adventures, Daniel. I am anxious to hear news of O’Neill. Why did he not come with you?” Skaara wrapped an arm around his wife and hugged her close, then set her loose to bring food and drink to the circle. 

“He’s retired now, Skaara. He’s not traveling off-world anymore.” Daniel raised an eyebrow when the small group huddled near broke into laughter. 

Skaara chuckled. “You must not joke about such things, Daniel. O’Neill would be most displeased.”

“It’s no joke. These last few years have been tough on Jack. More and more, it’s been difficult for him to ignore the injuries he’s received. It was time for him to step down from field work.” Daniel watched Skaara’s expression change; understanding crept across his face, and something more subtle, as he turned to look at Daniel. 

“And you, Daniel? What will you do without O’Neill to guide you?”

“Jack - guide me?” Daniel began incredulously, but Skaara dissolved into laughter.

“Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps it is not O’Neill who was the one to guide. But this is a matter best settled between the two of you.” Skaara’s dark eyes sparkled with vast amusement. “In the meantime, there is much to do here. My cousin will establish a new village, east of the temple. We must find the wells to give the water for his people. You will go with us, Daniel? To chart our route? Many miles lie between the wells of Nagada and the dunes beyond the old temple. The new village will need this map.”

“I can’t,” Daniel said, with a brief smile. “I still have a duty here. Besides, some of the boys make better maps than I do, now.”

“Yes. Is it not wonderful to see our progress?” Skaara flashed a proud grin. “We have taught them much. They follow your example, Daniel. We will be worthy friends of the Tau’ri.” For a moment, Skaara’s eyes glittered with ambition. 

“You already are,” Daniel pointed out. He shifted, restless, and Skaara caught his arm. 

“Come! See for yourself. Come!” His insistent tug brought Daniel to his feet; together, they walked the edges of the restored city, greeting familiar faces. But to Daniel, the walls of the city were the borders of a graveyard full of memories. Time had shifted and worlds had moved on without him; this was no longer his home. 

The corpses crawled into bed with Daniel every night, ghosts drawn from guilt. Like nails scratching across Daniel’s heart, the sounds of Skaara and his wife making love so close by left deep impressions of longing, though he thought he’d put the past behind him. He concentrated on the present; he tried to imagine Jack by the fire, telling stories with Skaara, looking up with feigned disinterest as Daniel detailed Nyan’s progress at the end of the day. The thought of it, of the look that would be in Jack’s eyes, sent Daniel out into the desert alone, aching for want of Jack. 

When sleep overtook him, he dreamed of snow falling thick on tall trees and of moonlight on the white carpet, silent and shining like a beacon. 

After four weeks in the relentless heat of Abydos, Daniel had started to feel like a relic shriveling in the sun each day on the long walk. After five, he stopped going to the gate. It was dangerous to seek things that were out of reach; the desert sun would strip away reason, if a man could not keep focused. Desperation finally drove him into the ruins with Nyan, where he sat every day in the shade of ancient, crumbling pillars and sketched things – birds overhead, the eye of Ra, Nyan kneeling at work. 

"You spent a year here?" Nyan was incredulous. The heat had gotten to him on the first day; he'd spent an hour on his knees throwing up. Daniel felt sorry for him, but empathy was low on his list of responses. He'd taken to Abydos the moment he stepped through the gate. 

"It's not very different from the deserts we have on Earth," Daniel said flatly. "I was used to it." More memories: his father passing him a canteen and sternly ordering him to drink. His mother, holding his hand and tracing the shapes of hieroglyphs with him, speaking words and phrases aloud. 

"In its own way, the desert is beautiful," Nyan answered. He took a long swallow of water from his canteen. "It's so very different from my world."

"It has its charms." Daniel rested a hand on Nyan's shoulder. "You miss your world, I know."

Nyan turned his face away, out toward the sunlight beyond the shade of the pillars. "I miss some of the people...my family. My culture. But I don't miss their bigotry, their intolerance." He fingered the canteen. "Your ways are better."

"Some might disagree," Daniel said. "Our world has just as much intolerance. You haven't had the chance to see much of it yet." He settled back against the stone pillar and watched the swirling, delicate mists of sand traveling the dunes.

"Is that part of why you left your world behind, Daniel?" Nyan gave him a shy, curious glance. "I've always wondered, but I didn't want to offend you by asking."

"I had compelling reasons to go. Both times." He could have explained. Nyan's open expression was an invitation to say so many things he'd never told anyone. But all those things were best left behind, like distant memories, perfected over time by the fading of all that marred them. He smiled. "You should get back to work."

"I suppose I should be grateful you no longer hover over me as I work," Nyan said. He flashed Daniel a grin. "But I had missed sharing ideas with you as they come to me. It’s been so good to have you back."

"If I'd had my way, you would have done this exploration with your own team," Daniel said. Sad, that he couldn’t get his way, even when he was in charge. "I'm just your advisor, remember."

"I know." Nyan jumped up and brushed sand from his BDUs. Gears switched, he was back inside within moments, poring over the old walls. Daniel found himself detached from Nyan’s fervor. It roused a distant sadness in his heart. 

He sketched while the suns dropped low on the horizon. When he’d finished filling the page with drawings, dark eyes stared out at him, inviting him home. 

The walk back to the village was a quick one. Nyan’s chatter filled the emptiness of the desert and kept Daniel anchored, until they passed the last crest and saw Skaara making his way up the dunes, wandering the edge of the perimeter, waiting for them. 

“Hello, Skaara!” Nyan waved as they came closer. 

Skaara’s smile was genuine. “Nyan. Was it a good day for your work?”

“Yes! Very much so. We found all sorts of things.” Nyan began to unfurl ten-odd feet of parchment, but Daniel stopped him with a hand on his arm as he met Skaara’s eyes. 

“Skaara,” Daniel interrupted. “Has something happened?” 

His brother-in-law glanced at Nyan and favored him with a smile and a nod. “Nyan, perhaps you should walk ahead of us. My apologies, but I wish to speak with Daniel.”

“Is everything all right?” Nyan asked, wavering. 

Daniel gave Skaara a long look; his friend’s expression was thoughtful, troubled. “Go ahead, Nyan,” he said. A growing anxiety was taking hold of his heart. When Nyan had disappeared behind the nearest dune, Daniel turned to Skaara. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing to worry about, my friend. O’Neill was here this afternoon.” 

“What?” Daniel looked wildly toward the village. “Is he—”

“No, Daniel. He is already gone.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t he wait for me?” Daniel said testily. 

“I think he has, Daniel. I think he is tired of waiting.” 

Daniel gave Skaara a sharp look. “What did he say?”

Skaara smiled. Together they began walking toward the village. “With O’Neill it is not always easy to understand his meaning. At first we talked of the first time he came here, and of Ra. Then we spoke of you, Daniel, and Sha’re, and your mourning for her.” Skaara looked off, over the dunes, toward the temple of Ra. “This place is special to him. When I see Abydos through his eyes, I am reminded of all I have fought for and against.”

“Jack hates sand,” Daniel said, with a smile. 

“Yes, that is true. But he is willing to endure it for you, Daniel.” Skaara stopped and drew himself up, every inch the leader he had become. “I wonder if you can see him clearly anymore.”

Daniel gripped Skaara’s arm. Hard muscle hid beneath his brother-in-law’s loose robes. “What’s going on?”

“What do you desire, Daniel?” Skaara laid his hand on top of Daniel’s and squeezed it with affection. “Why are you here?”

“It’s what I do,” Daniel said automatically. Surprising, how easily the words tumbled out, rote and simplistic. Meaningless.

“Yes. I thought you might say that.” Skaara nodded thoughtfully, then patted Daniel’s hand and released it. “But what else do you do? What else is there for you? I asked you this question many nights ago, but you were not ready to answer it then.”

Daniel stopped and stared at Skaara, who looked back at him with patient, kind eyes. Speech deserted him completely. 

“I have known you for many years, now. But though you stepped through the gate together, I knew O’Neill first. He is…hard-headed.” Skaara’s eyes gleamed when he used the phrase Daniel had used many times. “Still, he knows the value of family. We have been that to him – you and me.” 

“Yes, I know,” Daniel said softly. 

“When I became a man, I considered my life. Was it to be a life of wandering the stars, or a life of devotion to my wife, to my people and my children? These were not easy questions. I thought to myself: what would Daniel do? Daniel is wise. And what would O’Neill do? He is strong.” Skaara smiled; the corners of his eyes crinkled. “The wise and the strong still have trouble finding their hearts. It is better to be simple, like me.”

“You’re not simple,” Daniel said, with a knowing grin. 

Skaara nodded, still smiling, and looked out at the desert, over Daniel’s shoulder. “Then perhaps…this is the answer. There must be both – a balance.” Skaara gave him that quizzical look again. “What do you desire, Daniel? Where is your balance?”

Daniel looked out at the dunes and thought of trees, and ponds, and hard mattresses. “It’s a little complicated,” he said slowly. 

“I believe O’Neill wishes it to be…un…complicated,” Skaara said, stumbling over the long word. “He gave me a message for you. He said, ‘Tell Daniel the five year plan is cancelled. Tell him to bring his ass home.’” Skaara smiled. “I believe this means your work here is at an end, Daniel.” 

“Really.” A flare of anger tore through Daniel. “Isn’t that convenient. He makes a decision out of the blue but he doesn’t bother to wait for me to deliver the message himself? Dammit. What the hell gives him the right to change the rules?”

“I do not know, Daniel. Unless, of course, the rules were his to begin with.”

“What?” Daniel stared at Skaara; Skaara stared back, unflappable. “That is not what we agreed to, dammit.”

“You are the one who can best decide what you must do.” Skaara met his gaze evenly. 

Daniel ran a hand through his hair; hands on his hips, he stared in the direction of the temple, and of the stargate within. Anger was giving way to understanding. “I can’t just leave here. There are people still relying on me. Nyan, for one. I gave my word.” 

“You wish to continue your work here, then?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Daniel said. He fought for clarity, but everything had become muddled. “My work here was over before it began, Skaara.”

“I do not understand.” 

“This isn’t my work anymore,” Daniel said slowly. “I’m not who I was, when I came here. I mean, of course I’m who I was, but…I’m not.”

“Daniel,” Skaara said patiently. “Your words confuse me.”

“Well, that makes two of us.” Daniel threw up his hands. “It’s meaning of life stuff, but it’s not the meaning of my life, and…you have no idea what I’m talking about. When did I lose the ability to say what I mean? It’s like…I don’t…it’s almost like I can’t use words the way I need to anymore, now that I’m back. Now that it’s all lost.” He hesitated. He wasn’t even making sense to himself. He shook his head. “This is insane.”

“How can I help?” Skaara asked. He placed a hand on Daniel’s shoulder and clasped it tightly. 

“You can’t,” Daniel said. He laughed a little, a humorless laugh, and cast his eyes toward the sun on the horizon. “This isn’t my home anymore, it isn’t my work anymore...there’s nothing keeping me here, except a promise I made, and now…now that’s gone, too.”

“Then why are you here?”

Daniel’s knees gave out before he could brace himself, and suddenly he was sitting in a pile of sand with Skaara bending over him. “Daniel! Daniel, are you all right?” Daniel shook his head, oblivious to Skaara’s hand on his head, stroking his hair. “Daniel,” Skaara murmured, as he reached to touch Daniel’s face. 

"I shouldn't be here," Daniel said slowly, thinking out loud as his scattered thoughts coalesced. "I don’t know why I didn't see it. I was looking for what I used to be, for...where I used to belong. But this isn't that place, anymore. Jack was right." He looked up at Skaara. "I just didn't want to see it." 

“O’Neill is wise,” Skaara said, dropping down beside him. “Occasionally.”

“Occasionally,” Daniel agreed, and smiled down at the sand. “Nyan will be staying. He has a lot to do.”

“I think he would rather return home as well.” Skaara smiled. 

“One of us has to work. It’s Nyan’s turn.” Daniel covered Skaara’s hand with his own. “I’m going home.”

***

It was just like a divorce – deciding which bits of accumulated junk were his and which were government issue. It had all become mingled together over the years, joint possessions neither party could claim with any degree of certainty. He’d scattered books over every surface. Journals – the ones that weren’t classified, anyway – went into boxes. The rest would stay for Nyan’s use, since there was a puzzle to be solved, and he’d need all the resources he could find. 

“Daniel?” Sam rounded the corner and smiled at him. Infectious, that smile; he had to smile back. 

“Hey, Sam.” 

She stopped at the edge of the workstation, hesitating there as she looked around his office. “This is something I had really hoped I wouldn’t see. Not for a long time, anyway.” 

“I know, Sam, but it’s time. You’ve got to feel it. I do.” He perched on the edge of his chair. “This isn’t my game anymore. I don’t know, it’s…the spark has gone out of it. I’ll still be available to consult. It’s not like I’m leaving for good.”

“I know, but it won’t be the same.” Sam smiled wistfully at him. “Teal’c and I are the only two left, now. It seems so strange.”

“I always thought I’d know when it was time to move on.” He looked up at her, at the sad expression on her face. “And…I did know, though I tried not to see it. It’s overdue.” He closed a box and folded the flaps down and under, a crude seal. “You know, for a long time, Jack was trying to tell us both something, and neither of us was listening.”

“What, get a life?” She grinned at him. “Are you trying to tell me you went and got a life, Daniel?”

“Maybe.” He grinned back. 

She took the box from his arms and loaded it onto the dolly. “Should I speculate?”

Daniel looked at her and thought of a time, a near future, when she’d understand everything, all his choices. “Soon, Sam, I promise. Dinner and a beer. And all the details.”

“You’re on.” She picked up items from the desk and began handing them to him. “Are you absolutely sure this is what you want?” she asked, as he wrapped each artifact in bubblepack. “I mean…Daniel, I hate to see you go.” She smiled brightly at him. “I’m going to hate replacing you. I just took command of my team, and it’s dissolving around me. Some leader I am.”

“Some leader you are,” he agreed. “One hell of a leader.” He put his arms around her and hugged her tight. 

In his ear, she whispered, “Make good use of this time, Daniel. Not everyone gets a chance to be happy.”

“A second chance,” he told her, and kissed her tears. 

 

***

 

"Take it."

"What?" Daniel shifted on the lawn chair, sat up and looked at Jack, who thrust a live worm in his direction. 

“This.” 

Daniel snatched his hand away with a little noise of surprise. “Uh…no.”

Jack grinned at him, yanked his hand open and dropped the worm into his palm. "Goes on the hook, Daniel. Don't let it slip away. I'm running out of bait."

"Jack..."

"Hm?" 

Daniel considered what he had been about to say. "Nothing." He set the worm down on the deck. A strong sense of deja-vu washed over him, a fragment of memory from long ago. 

Jack took a sip from a nearly-empty bottle of beer, put his feet up on the cooler, and cast his line into the lake. "C'mere," he said, and crooked a finger at Daniel. "Or have you stopped taking my orders altogether now?"

"Orders?" Daniel said. "Please. I never took your orders to begin with."

"Not at work you didn't." Jack latched onto the collar of his shirt, pulled him forward, and there was no more talking. Amazing how familiar it felt, and how right. 

Except it wasn't. Not yet. One last thing to settle, first. 

“So.” Jack pulled at the fishing line. “You’re okay with this?”

“Define okay,” Daniel said, but he stopped mid-teasing when he caught sight of Jack’s face. “Yes, Jack. I’m okay with it. More than okay.”

“Tell me why.”

“What?” Daniel was puzzled by the question; for some reason, it annoyed Jack. 

“I said: tell me why. Why are you suddenly okay with this, when you wanted to put in at least five more years working on the project?” Jack narrowed his eyes. “The truth, Daniel.”

“I’m tired of leaving.”

“Bullshit.” Jack set his empty beer bottle down and tugged on the line. “But thanks for playing. Try again.”

“Fine. I’m not really tired of leaving. I’m tired of not being where you are.” Daniel cocked his head in Jack’s direction. “And don’t pretend like you didn’t already know I felt that way, because you’re the one who traveled across the known galaxy to point it out.”

Jack nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Okay. Better.”

“What about you, Jack?” Daniel leaned over and kissed him, gently, the way a man is careful with something precious. 

“I’m still tired of staying. Especially when you’re not staying with me.”

“It’s the same thing, then.”

“Sort of.”

“So.” Daniel crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “The question is, what now?”

“I’ve already got a job, remember? I hear they may even let me fondle the Stargate every now and then, as long as I don’t try anything crazy. Like, oh, stepping through it.” 

“Consulting keeps you in the game,” Daniel reminded him. “It’s better than—”

“I know, I know.” Jack glanced sideways at him. “But I still want to be in the game, Daniel. What about you?”

Daniel directed his gaze out at the trees across the water and thought about how to answer the question. He’d wanted everything, once upon a time, and once he’d managed to get it, it hadn’t been what he expected. ‘Everything’ hadn’t been enough. 

“I’m not sure,” he said finally. “Something different. Teaching, maybe. I can help other people find their own paths, show them how to reach knowledge. There are things I haven’t done. I have to move in a new direction, Jack. It’s important.”

“I gathered that,” Jack said softly. “No regrets?”

“None.”

They sat in silence on the dock and watched the sun go down to shadow. Light played over the surface of the lake. Jack listened to the sound of the loons, the rustling of the leaves in the trees, distant and close. Daniel sat at his side, quiet, content. 

“Why didn’t you tell them?” Jack asked suddenly, as he lifted his feet and fished out another beer.

“Tell them what?” There was an exaggerated calmness to Daniel’s words. Strange, that Jack could see straight into his heart anyway, even when he gave nothing away. 

“That you knew. Know. Whatever.”

“What do you mean, Jack?” Daniel lifted his bottle and took a long sip of the imported beer; a smile played around his lips. 

“Come on, Daniel. Cut the crap. Nothing in this world could have dragged you away from the latest big meaning of life thing unless you already got it. Am I right?” Jack wiggled the fishing pole. “You remember, don’t you? You remember all of it.”

“Jack. Do you remember how long the NID held me in custody, after I, uh…returned? They asked me so many questions I lost track of time, of what day it was, of everything. I started to wonder if they were going to release me, and I was powerless to do anything about it.”

“You wouldn’t have been there forever,” Jack said, with a grim smile. “That, I guarantee you.”

Daniel nodded, unconvinced. “I know you believe that, but…this goes beyond connections, beyond the power you had to get me out of there. I don’t think the NID would ever have let me go free if I’d remembered anything of value. I’m pretty sure I would never have seen the light of day again. I’d be in a tiny cell somewhere, writing out every bit of what I remember for the length of my natural life.”

“You’re probably right about that.” Jack reached out and traced the faint smile gracing Daniel’s lips. “What was I thinking?”

Daniel caught Jack’s hand and lifted it closer, brought Jack’s fingertips between his lips and licked them. After a long moment, he whispered, “Just…fragments.I remember just enough to take the fun out of it. Enough to ease that feeling of wanting, of never knowing enough. I had to stop listening to my mind in order to hear my heart. There are still things left undiscovered, things I want to learn, to know.” He pressed Jack’s hand against his face. “But they are in places I wasn’t able to look, when I could see everything all at once.”

Jack hitched the pole underneath the arm of the lawn chair and moved to Daniel’s side, to kneel beside his chair. “Where do you want to be, Daniel? Are you staying?”

Daniel’s mouth covered his, open and inviting, the answer to all questions. Language without words. An answer, in its truest form. 

They kissed for a long time in the deepening shadows; loons called, far away, and cicadas chirped. “Tomorrow,” Jack said, “the cell phone goes in the pond.”

**Author's Note:**

> (original notes, posted 2003) I can’t believe I wrote a post seventh-season relationship story; that’s not exactly what I started out to do, but that’s what I ended up with. This story will definitely contradict future canon, so I might as well call it an AU and get it over with. Huge thanks to Lori, Brighid, Lady of Asheru, Carol S and Barkley for their insights and honesty while slogging through multiple drafts of this thing.


End file.
